· Khalid Al-Qassimi returns to MERC action with new co-driver
· Competitors from nine countries set for Jordan rallying bonanza

DEAD SEA (Jordan): Officials at Jordan Motorsport are piecing together final plans for this week’s Jordan Rally, round four of the 2012 FIA Middle East Rally Championship, which has attracted one of the strongest entries ever seen in the regional rally series.

Hosted by the new Crowne Plaza Dead Sea Resort and Spa, the Jordan Rally gets underway with a ceremonial start at the Royal Automobile Museum in Amman on Thursday evening and has attracted the region’s top drivers, three FIA-seeded entrants and no less than eight S2000 cars.

The 30th anniversary running of the Jordan Rally sees the return to regional rallying action of 2004 champion Sheikh Khalid Al-Qassimi. The Emirati has teamed up with young British co-driver Marshall Clarke for his return to the special stages where he is relishing the opportunity to lock horns with old adversary Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, a winner of the championship for seven of the last nine years.

Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi followed both Al-Qassimi and Al-Attiyah into the FIA World Rally Championship and the Riyadh driver is also back in MERC action this week with his Ford Fiesta S2000 and Al-Qassimi’s former co-driver Michael Orr reading the pace notes. Between them, the three drivers have won 52 of the 172 rallies ever to be staged in the championship since it began back in the mid 1980s.

The appearance of the trio should not detract from the battle for this year’s regional title that was thrown wide open by the recent 10th Rally of Lebanon victory by Roger Feghali.

The Lebanese has duly decided to enter the Jordan Rally with his Ford Fiesta S2000 and holds third in the Drivers’ Championship, 12 points behind Qatar’s Misfer Al-Marri and 15 points behind current series leader Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari, the winner of the Qatar International Rally.

Competitors from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, Great Britain, Italy, the UAE, Turkey and Egypt will be permitted two days of restricted reconnaissance of the gravel special stages in the Dead Sea area on Tuesday and Wednesday, before the official pre-event press conference takes place on the shores of the Dead Sea on Wednesday afternoon at 16.30hrs.